


Unrequited

by Alley_Skywalker



Category: Voyná i mir | War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Genre: F/M, Marriage Proposal, Missing Scene, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2019-10-26 06:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17740460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/pseuds/Alley_Skywalker
Summary: Sonya knows before he says anything what he wishes to say and her heart pounds in her chest.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally a one-shot but is now a duology :)

He’s standing by the window with his back to the door when she comes in. He’s in his uniform, the epaulets and tight, sharp lines of the uniform jacket outlining a dashing, slender figure. His back is straight, and his head held high, hands clasped neatly behind his back. She has never seen him quite like this – formal and firmly awaiting something. 

Sonya’s breath catches and she feel an unpleasant shiver run down her back, even as a traitorous thought flits through her mind: _he looks better in uniform than Nikolai._

 __The silence is unbearable and the soft click of the door as it closes behind her too loud and distinct. “M. Dolokhov.” Sonya can hear the slight tremor in her own voice. “I was told you wished to speak to me…in private.”

He turns and his eyes are bright – sharp and clear and sparking with cleverness, though the usual mirth is gone from them just now. He is serious, deadly so, but not awkward or visibly anxious. Sonya knows before he says anything what he wishes to say and her heart pounds in her chest. 

“Sofia Alexandrovna, you must know… Have you read my letter?”

She nods, her face starting to heat up. She had wanted to burn it, to excise his words from her soul. The sort of words Nikolai has not said to her in ages. That no one else has ever said to her and probably never would again. But she could not bring herself to do it. it was her only breath of feeling what Natasha must feel so often, adored as she is by so many. And truly, Fyodor Ivanovich is not the worst man to receive such words from. He is Nikolai’s friend, so he must be good. He has been kind to her – she who has nothing – so he must be pure of soul. 

A hint of a smile crosses his face and Sonya finds that she is trembling, both in fear and anticipation and some other, unformed, unnamed emotion.

“I love you,” he says. 

He says more, but she does not hear. The words swirl around in her mind, echoing and blurring together. She looks up into his clear, bright eyes, sees his handsome face and shapely figure and broad shoulders, hears the firm, warm notes in his voice and feels—

Feel like in some other life, as some other girl, whose heart was not so hopelessly taken, she would have said _yes_ in a heartbeat. 

He is asking her to marry him. __

_I love you._

__And she tries to remember when the last time Nikolai had said that to her had been and the last time she truly believed him.

_I love you._

__And she forms the words in her mind, tries them on for size, imagines, for one moment, a family of her own.

He is so very handsome and so very good to her. And he loves her. 

And he is not Nikolai. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, and to her own surprise it comes out with a sob “I cannot.”


	2. Chapter 2

Sonya runs into her room, feeling tears sting the back of her eyes. She doesn’t know why she feels so badly like crying. She tells herself she is embarrassed, or perhaps sad that she had to hurt someone who had tried to be her friend. _More than a friend._  
  
If she closes her eyes, she can still see Dolokhov’s expression when she turned down his proposal, the brief flicker of intense disappointment in his eyes before he took control of his expression, and the unexplainable bone-deep regret about – _something –_ that had immediately settled itself into her core. 

It is in this very moment that she feels acutely how few friends she has. She had never needed any other than Natasha and Nikolai. They had been everything to her and that had worked out neatly until now.  
  
Nikolai is her love. Natasha is her best friend. But in this moment, as she throws herself face down on her bed and buries her face in the pillow, she wishes there were someone she could talk to about her feelings who is _not_ Natasha, Someone who is not Nikolai’s sister, who is not so terribly invested in the entire situation.

When Natasha inevitably finds her several minutes later, she coos and springs curiosity. Her eyes are bright and inquisitive. These things are very new to her – not that Sonya’s experience is much better, but she is older and has a beau, so there is that. Sonya tells her everything, with the same earnestness they have always shared. She cannot bring herself to not be truthful with Natasha, though she downplays the stirrings deep in her chest, and pretends that her resolve had not falter for even a moment, even as she still feels a hitch in her breath when she thinks of Dolokhov’s bright, blue, clever eyes. 

She expects Natasha to be happy, to be proud of her, so she only smiles vaguely when Natasha bounces off the bed and begins to half-pace, half-spin across the room. To her this is a game. “Oh, it’s lovely, it’s so romantic! And you’re so good!” Natasha cries, clasping her hands. Sonya takes the opportunity offered by Natasha’s distraction to wipe away what remains of her tears. 

She expects Natasha’s enthusiasm. What she does not expect is for Natasha to stop suddenly and say, lips pursed, “But…oh, dear.”

Alarmed, Sonya gazes up at her. “What?”

“Oh, but, no, it’s only…But Nikolai, he…” 

“He what? Natasha, what?”

But Natasha only wrings her hands and runs from the room. Sonya, baffled, watches her go, then curls back in on herself. She stares blankly at the wall across the room from her, her eyes thoughtlessly tracing the edges of the flowers on the wallpaper. She is used to Natasha’s outburst, knows that sometimes Natasha has too many feelings to put into words. 

Sonya also has too many feelings, but she can usually articulate them. This time, however, she truly does not know what she feels. She tells herself she is unhappy because she hurt someone, and she tells herself she is frightened because she does not want Nikolai to think she had encouraged Dolokhov’s affections. But none of that feels quite right. 

Sonya stands and walks numbly to her secrétaire as though in a dream. Her limbs feel heavy and it takes an odd amount of strength to lift her arm and unlock one of the drawers. She takes out a neatly folded letter and unfolds it, smooths out the creases and re-reads the words she has read before at least a dozen times. 

She does not know why she keeps his letter. She does not know why she keeps re-reading it, even after her choice has been made and the deed done. Perhaps she thinks that if only she could figure out what she feels when she reads his words, sees how he looks at her, perhaps then she can come to peace with whatever has been eating her up inside.

_I love you._

__The words jump out at her from the page in a strange, bold hand. She now knows what it is like when he says them aloud, what his voice sounds like on the vowels, what shape his mouth makes and how intense his eyes are. Her hands tremble but Sonya continues to read, coming back to that line against and again.

_I love you._

__She should burn the letter, dip one corner into the flame of a candle and watch the fire devour it. Perhaps its destruction will purify her soul as well.

Instead, she folds it up and locks it away again. One day, one day she will make herself understand.


End file.
